This invention relates to an improved chair apparatus that is designed for use in a kneeling position and is reversible for utilization in the normal seated position.
Both chairs and kneeling apparatus have been known in the art for quite some time. Several so called "posture" chairs have been disclosed which are designed to rotate hips foward aligning back with gravity, leaving internal organs in an uncramped position, and to distribute the weight from the user's posterior to the user's knees. For example, stationary chairs consisting of permanently fixed seats and kneeling pads or partially movable seats and kneelers have been designed. An example of a fixed "posture" chair with a partially movable seat and kneeling pad is disclosed in Vowles U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,493 which utilizes a complicated, structurally intricate, mechanism to provide a movable seat and kneeler in order to provide a variety of kneeling positions. Rocking chair "posture" chairs are also known in the art as exemplified by Mengshoel et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,991. The Mengshoel et al patent discloses a sitting device which serves as an ordinary bench when sitting normally or which may be rocked forward so that the knees may be rested on to two individual kneeling pads.
A drawback to the "posture" chairs known in the art is that a conventional seating option which includes a back rest is not available. Further, the adjustable nature of the prior art "posture" chairs is limited by the complexity of steps necessary to make the adjustment. An additional drawback to "posture" chairs known in the art is that the knee rests either flex laterally individually, as in the Mengshoel device described above, thereby causing one or both knees to slip and possibly throwing the user off balance or provided no flexibility when the knee rest was a single unit, as in the Vowles patent described above. Further, configuration of chairs in the prior art resulted in joints which were susceptible to deterioration at the joints as a result of racking, as when a person leans back in a straight backed chair. Additionally, there is no means provided in the art of "posture" chairs for a support stand attached to the kneeler of such a chair to hold items in front of the user of a "posture" chair. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a combination chair and "posture" chair which provides for conventional seating, for simple multiple adjustments between the seat and knee rest when the chair is utilized in its "posture" chair mode, for a flexible, unitized, stable knee rest, which has non-racking joints and which, among other things, provides for a support stand attached to the kneeler to hold items in front of the user of such a "posture" chair. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an improved combination conventional and "posture" chair which meets these and other needs as hereafter more fully described.